There is one type of assignment that most of my reporting colleagues absolutely dread: knocking on the door, uninvited, of the families of victims of crimes or accidents. Mores and morals dictate that, as normal, decent human beings, we do not disturb those who have been traumatised by tragedy, or those grieving for lost loved ones. However, the demands of news gathering - most of which is bad news - inevitably compels reporters and photographers to do the opposite. The South China Morning Post has recently attracted quite a few critical letters from irate readers after we published a photo of a housewife - her face turned deep purple - who had just survived her husband's attempt to strangle her. Several other newspapers also ran the picture. We journalists have a ready answer in this and similar cases: it was in the public interest to publish the photo, because it was a case of extreme domestic violence - a serious social problem in Hong Kong that is much neglected by the government. The papers, in any case, were on safe legal ground because the victim had leaned out of the front door and thus positioned herself in a public corridor (a public space). The photographers were standing in a public area; and a police officer was seen in the background, running towards the victim, so even if the photographers had not offered assistance, help was at hand. Meeting legal requirements does not mean we have done the right thing. This is the eternal ethical question for our profession: do we do the job right or do the right thing - report or help? The most recent, famous instance of this conundrum in journalism involved not only the tragedy of a child victim who was captured on film, but the suicide of the man behind the lens. Kevin Carter was a member of a famous group of South African photographers - the 'Bang-Bang Club' - who shot some of the most violent events during the struggle against apartheid in the 1990s. His most famous picture - before his Pulitzer-Prize-winning vulture photograph taken during the 1993 Sudan famine - was that of a public execution by 'necklacing' in South Africa. It was a common form of execution: trap a victim in a rubber tyre, filled with petrol, and set it on fire. He said he felt awful about taking the execution pictures but later, on reflection, he thought it did some good. His words are relevant here: 'I was appalled at what they were doing. I was appalled at what I was doing. But then people started talking about those pictures ... then I felt that maybe my actions hadn't been at all bad. Being a witness to something this horrible wasn't necessarily such a bad thing to do.' In 1993, he went to southern Sudan and took his fateful photo. He spotted an emaciated child who had collapsed on her way to a feeding centre, while a nearby vulture watched. Carter took the heartbreaking photograph and claimed he chased the vulture away. But after he won the Pulitzer Prize, people raised questions about what had happened to the girl: he could not answer them, because he just went away after shooting the photo. A public outcry ensured, and he committed suicide shortly afterwards. Every profession has its own ethical tension, and it is easy for outsiders to stand in judgment because they do not have to deal with it. A doctor is often in conflict between wanting to provide the most effective treatment and not having enough resources to do so. A teacher spends most if not all of her time drilling her students to pass public exams, while knowing full well that true education goes much deeper than preparing for examinations. Journalists often deal with bad - even terrible - news, which always involves victims and their families. There is a fine line between intruding and reporting. Alex Lo is a columnist and senior reporter at the Post
